Why do smart people make irrational decisions every day? Why do we repeatedly make the same mistakes when we make our selections? How do our expectations influence our actual opinions and decisions? The answers, as revealed by behavioural economist Professor Dan Ariely of MIT, will surprise you. This event was recorded on 17 March 2008 in the Old Theatre, Old Building at the London School of Economics. It is available as an mp3 file of 17 MB and lasts about 75 minutes.
Video and Audio Lectures in Other topics
Jonathan Michie, Linda Yueh, and Martin Slater, University of Oxford
A podcast series about the credit crunch and global recession featuring three Oxford academics. This series examines how the current crisis developed, analyses market and government responses to it, and looks at what might happen next. Eight audio files are available with most programmes lasting around 30 minutes.
Richard Thaler, University of Chicago
This is a website accompanying a 9 hour course in behavioural economics taught by Richard Thaler of the University of Chicago and organised by the Edge Foundation. It featured input from Sendhil Mullainathan, as well as Daniel Kahneman. The site includes texts providing an introduction to behavioural economics, reports on two days of the course and a videos of 10-15 minutes from each class, alongside a transcript of each videoed session.
Dan Ariely, Duke University
Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational speaks about his work in this video from TED.com. He introduces the idea of experimental testing of economic hypotheses, applying it to experienced utility and to cheating behaviour. He contrasts the experimental results on cheating with what is predicted by rational choice analysis and draws implications for ethics in the financial sphere. User will need a Flash based video player in their browser to view this 16 minute video.
Dan Gilbert, Harvard University
Dan Gilbert, Harvard psychologist and author of Stumbling on Happiness talks about his work in this video from TED.com. Gilbert explains the principle of expected utility maximisation and contrasts it with the results of behavioural research. Covers biases and heuristics in subjective estimation of both probabilities and utilities. Explains hyperbolic discounting and its role in apparently inconsistent preferences. 34 minutes including Q&A at end. Users will need a Flash player to watch this video.
